In my last article I talked about “differential voting” (差额选举) in the selection of delegates to the 17th National Congress. One of my basic points was that we can look at the increase in the “differential rate” (差额) – a higher ratio of candidates to positions available – as a measure of progress on political […]
I would expect the reader’s response to the above headline to be something like: “Voting? In China? What is there to talk about?” Point taken. But even if we’re not seeing popular democratic elections, it’s worth noting that Chinese media have been talking about “election” (选举), or xuanju, in the selection of delegates to the […]
Pundits generally agree that this month’s 17th National Congress is unlikely to bring major change on the political reform front. But many also predict there will be small steps forward, and that these are likely to come in the area of “inner-party democracy” (党内民主). I agree with this assessment, and I think we should pay […]
When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wrote in the official People’s Daily earlier this year that China “is now and has long been in the early stages of socialism,” the phrase hearkened back to the political reform era of the 1980s. For many Chinese, there were clear echoes of Zhao Ziyang’s report to the 13th National […]
The so-called “Four Basic Principles” (四项基本原则) are a hangover from the Maoist era in China and a symbol of the power still wielded by leftists. At every juncture of reforms, political conservatives in China have attacked reforms as violations of the “Four Basic Principles.” Taking the capitalist road, they say, has weakened the party, abandoned […]
As October’s 17th National Congress draws closer, the word “democracy” (and its numerous permutations) is being tossed around like a hot potato in China’s media, from official party journals to more liberal commercial papers. Not long ago, an article from Asia Times suggested the late-breaking debate in China over political reform was flash-in-the-pan, “unlikely to […]
By some Chinese accounts, “fake news”, or xujia xinwen, has plagued news media in China since at least the Cultural Revolution, at which time media fabricated news to suit the political purposes of the Gang of Four. It is an extremely fuzzy term, and obviously, while it may be used by Chinese officialdom in campaigns […]
Cases like the beating death of reporter Lan Chengzhang earlier this year, and the controversy surrounding the Foxconn Case in August 2006, have underscored the growing problem of media ethics and press corruption in China. A crucial point often overlooked in coverage of this issue is the relationship between problems in the Chinese media and […]
So far, editors at China’s leading business magazine, Caijing, have not come forward to comment on the pulling of the publication’s latest issue this week [WSJ coverage]. But the word on the street, according to a CMP source within the financial media, is that an insider at Caijing tipped propaganda authorities off to the existence […]
The one-year anniversary of the shutdown of Freezing Point passed in silence last week. Meanwhile, the editorial page team at Southern Metropolis Daily, a commercial spin-off of Guangzhou’s official Nanfang Daily, were putting together the next few installments in their editorial series commemorating the 15th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s “southern tour”, which in 1992 accelerated […]